DEL STONE JR.: Private firms will go where no one has gone before

Published: Friday, July 25, 2014 at 05:54 PM.

I fell in love with astronomy at an early age.
I had it all — a map of the solar system on my bedroom wall, a small reflector telescope and all the geeky science and science fiction books I could devour. I wanted to be an astronomer when I grew up.
Unfortunately, what I didn’t have was the ability to figure out higher mathematics. My career as an astronomer disappeared into a black hole of uncalculated calculus.
Still, my love of the night sky persisted. I was glued to the TV when Neil Armstrong planted his foot on the moon. The Voyager encounters with Uranus and Neptune were like twin rock concerts for me. I followed Curiosity’s improbable descent to the Martian surface and I’ll be scrounging the Internet for videos and photos of New Horizon’s flyby of Pluto next year.
For all those years I’ve dreamed of the day when mankind would finally find something alive out there, hear a radio signal from E.T. and, most important, go out there to live — permanently.
And for all those years I assumed it would be the government that would get us there; NASA, ESA and the Russian space agency throwing their megabucks at the stars. Never did I believe the private sector would play much of a role. The cost of space exploration is, if you’ll pardon the pun, sky high. No company would shell out that kind of money. And the private sector, at least here in the States, doesn’t have a sparkling record of foresight or investing in long-term projects.
Boy, was I wrong.
Just this month, the United Kingdom announced it was building a spaceport for what it expects will be a surge in space tourism conducted by private companies.
Space tourism sounds unthinkably expensive, but starting in 2001 visitors started knocking on the door of the International Space Station, paying between $20 million and $40 million for their trips, which were arranged by a private booking company, Space Adventures. NASA objected vigorously to the idea of allowing civilians to fly to the station, but the Russian space agency, which supplied the rockets and needed the cash, ignored those protests and pushed ahead. Now, a space station tourist hardly rates a headline.
Private companies have begun building their own rockets, mostly notably Elon Musk, he of Tesla electric car fame, with his rocket company SpaceX. The company’s rocket, the Falcon 9, has already flown supply missions to the ISS and SpaceX says it will soon have a man-rated version of its Dragon capsule ready to send American astronauts to the station and beyond, ending this country’s shameful dependency on Russia for getting its astronauts into space.
Meanwhile, another company, Orbital Sciences, has also flown capsules to the ISS aboard its Antares rocket, and has been launching satellites into low Earth orbit from its air-dropped Pegasus rocket for decades.
Other companies are getting into the launch business, including Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites, which is building a spacecraft for Virgin Galactic that will take paying customers on suborbital flights. Virgin Galactic has already booked 500 passengers for the ride, according to its website. Launches are expected to commence sometime this year.
The Spaceship Company, which is owned by Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic fame, is also working on a new kind of rocket designed to get satellites into orbit without using expendable rockets.
Several other American companies are working on vehicles to carry passengers on suborbital flights, and one company is working on a design for an inflatable space hotel. Others are planning excursions to the moon. SpaceX’s Musk has his eye on Mars.
This is exactly what space exploration needs. NASA employs a bunch of smart, dedicated people, but the agency’s hands have always been tied by the men and women of Congress, who are short on vision and haven’t always acted in the interests of moving the country forward to its manifest destiny in space.
Instead, the private sector, with clearly designed goals and an appetite for profits, is poised to do what Congress could not: send mankind throughout the solar system and, maybe one day, the stars.

Contact online editor Del Stone Jr. at (850) 315-4433 or at dstone@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on twitter at @delsnwfdn, and friend him on Facebook at dels nwfdn.

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I fell in love with astronomy at an early age.
I had it all — a map of the solar system on my bedroom wall, a small reflector telescope and all the geeky science and science fiction books I could devour. I wanted to be an astronomer when I grew up.
Unfortunately, what I didn’t have was the ability to figure out higher mathematics. My career as an astronomer disappeared into a black hole of uncalculated calculus.
Still, my love of the night sky persisted. I was glued to the TV when Neil Armstrong planted his foot on the moon. The Voyager encounters with Uranus and Neptune were like twin rock concerts for me. I followed Curiosity’s improbable descent to the Martian surface and I’ll be scrounging the Internet for videos and photos of New Horizon’s flyby of Pluto next year.
For all those years I’ve dreamed of the day when mankind would finally find something alive out there, hear a radio signal from E.T. and, most important, go out there to live — permanently.
And for all those years I assumed it would be the government that would get us there; NASA, ESA and the Russian space agency throwing their megabucks at the stars. Never did I believe the private sector would play much of a role. The cost of space exploration is, if you’ll pardon the pun, sky high. No company would shell out that kind of money. And the private sector, at least here in the States, doesn’t have a sparkling record of foresight or investing in long-term projects.
Boy, was I wrong.
Just this month, the United Kingdom announced it was building a spaceport for what it expects will be a surge in space tourism conducted by private companies.
Space tourism sounds unthinkably expensive, but starting in 2001 visitors started knocking on the door of the International Space Station, paying between $20 million and $40 million for their trips, which were arranged by a private booking company, Space Adventures. NASA objected vigorously to the idea of allowing civilians to fly to the station, but the Russian space agency, which supplied the rockets and needed the cash, ignored those protests and pushed ahead. Now, a space station tourist hardly rates a headline.
Private companies have begun building their own rockets, mostly notably Elon Musk, he of Tesla electric car fame, with his rocket company SpaceX. The company’s rocket, the Falcon 9, has already flown supply missions to the ISS and SpaceX says it will soon have a man-rated version of its Dragon capsule ready to send American astronauts to the station and beyond, ending this country’s shameful dependency on Russia for getting its astronauts into space.
Meanwhile, another company, Orbital Sciences, has also flown capsules to the ISS aboard its Antares rocket, and has been launching satellites into low Earth orbit from its air-dropped Pegasus rocket for decades.
Other companies are getting into the launch business, including Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites, which is building a spacecraft for Virgin Galactic that will take paying customers on suborbital flights. Virgin Galactic has already booked 500 passengers for the ride, according to its website. Launches are expected to commence sometime this year.
The Spaceship Company, which is owned by Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic fame, is also working on a new kind of rocket designed to get satellites into orbit without using expendable rockets.
Several other American companies are working on vehicles to carry passengers on suborbital flights, and one company is working on a design for an inflatable space hotel. Others are planning excursions to the moon. SpaceX’s Musk has his eye on Mars.
This is exactly what space exploration needs. NASA employs a bunch of smart, dedicated people, but the agency’s hands have always been tied by the men and women of Congress, who are short on vision and haven’t always acted in the interests of moving the country forward to its manifest destiny in space.
Instead, the private sector, with clearly designed goals and an appetite for profits, is poised to do what Congress could not: send mankind throughout the solar system and, maybe one day, the stars.

Contact online editor Del Stone Jr. at (850) 315-4433 or at dstone@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on twitter at @delsnwfdn, and friend him on Facebook at dels nwfdn.